Gustavo Meoño, director of the PN Historical Archives, believes that the facts about how the structures operated in the past can help the CICIG (International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala) to investigate present operations of organized crime.
Gustavo Meoño evaluates the results of the recovery and investigation of the PN Historical Archive documents.
Q. Have your expectations with respect to the recuperation of the Archives been met?
A. We have reached the basic objectives of the first phase, keeping in mind that this was a huge deposit of deteriorating paperwork. From an archivist point of view, we stopped the deterioration process. What's more, we've concluded the process of preservation, organization and description of close to six million documents. At the same time, we have investigated the key years from 1975 to 1985.
Q. There are those that thought the Archives were going to be nothing but a compilation of historic documents, and would not be investigated for human rights violations.
A. We cannot forget that the mission of the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office (PDH) is not just to save and preserve Archives; its objective, in this case, is to find documents that prove human rights violations.
Q. Can you assert that you have found proof that could serve as evidence to take cases to trial?
A. Definitely, yes. But it's important to understand the reality of an administrative archive; we're not going to find a smoking gun. The documents won't contain explicit orders to kidnap, torture, or assassinate...In administrative documentation, things appear expressed in a different way, but they appear
Q. The Cicig is interested in understanding how organized crime operates today. But to understand today, it is necessary to know how it operated in the past. The information of the Archives could be very valuable to them. Would you be willing to share the information with the Cicig?
A. To me, this is one of the most important and urgent contributions that can be made by the PDH Archive project because the strategies, structures, operative policies, patterns of action, chains of command, and the flow of information do not differ much from what occurs today.
Gustavo Meoño evaluates the results of the recovery and investigation of the PN Historical Archive documents.
Q. Have your expectations with respect to the recuperation of the Archives been met?
A. We have reached the basic objectives of the first phase, keeping in mind that this was a huge deposit of deteriorating paperwork. From an archivist point of view, we stopped the deterioration process. What's more, we've concluded the process of preservation, organization and description of close to six million documents. At the same time, we have investigated the key years from 1975 to 1985.
Q. There are those that thought the Archives were going to be nothing but a compilation of historic documents, and would not be investigated for human rights violations.
A. We cannot forget that the mission of the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office (PDH) is not just to save and preserve Archives; its objective, in this case, is to find documents that prove human rights violations.
Q. Can you assert that you have found proof that could serve as evidence to take cases to trial?
A. Definitely, yes. But it's important to understand the reality of an administrative archive; we're not going to find a smoking gun. The documents won't contain explicit orders to kidnap, torture, or assassinate...In administrative documentation, things appear expressed in a different way, but they appear
Q. The Cicig is interested in understanding how organized crime operates today. But to understand today, it is necessary to know how it operated in the past. The information of the Archives could be very valuable to them. Would you be willing to share the information with the Cicig?
A. To me, this is one of the most important and urgent contributions that can be made by the PDH Archive project because the strategies, structures, operative policies, patterns of action, chains of command, and the flow of information do not differ much from what occurs today.
